Welcome to summer
By Nomali Minenhle Cele
Two springs ago, I put the idea for this space, this zine, into the world for the first time. A lot was happening: Depression, unemployment, hunger, anxiety about money, life. Summer, as always, seemed like a tangible escape to me. Hasn't it always been the best? A time to take it easy. A time where days last forever and you have no worries because, until 26 December, everything feels infinite. That's the spring I was working, for the first time in over a year, but I felt like dying every moment I spent at that desk. I kept thinking of summer. Of Dezemba. Of Freedom. I didn't last a month at that job.
I'd started writing with my writing partner a few months prior. She taught me to just write. To do it and see what happens. Some days, I would lie to her and say I'd done that day's 30 minutes of writing for a reason I can't remember but I guess it was fear. I was afraid to disappoint her or confront the fact that even though writing is important to me, there are times when I can't do it or don't want to do it. Mental health is a strange thing and the lack of it has constantly threatened how I view the things I love such as writing and reading.
We submitted the resulting stories to a contest -- my second of that year. Neither one of us got anywhere in the contest. I didn't come out feeling like my story was that exceptional but I still felt upset. My partner, on the other hand, came out with a fantastic and beautiful story and I felt angry on her behalf at the result. I was tired of seeing white men on mastheads; white men making decisions about what African writing and fiction and documenting culture looked like. I still am. And so, Uju was put in the world.
From my blackberry curve:
Regardless of how everything we invent for ourselves is taken and white-washed. The selfies and self-representation that woc, but especially black women, keep online are a special kind of self-love and self-preservation. This is how we see ourselves, these are parts of black girlhood, parts of black womanhood in 2015. We are here. I see us. I see every one of us.
We submitted the resulting stories to a contest -- my second of that year. Neither one of us got anywhere in the contest. I didn't come out feeling like my story was that exceptional but I still felt upset. My partner, on the other hand, came out with a fantastic and beautiful story and I felt angry on her behalf at the result. I was tired of seeing white men on mastheads; white men making decisions about what African writing and fiction and documenting culture looked like. I still am. And so, Uju was put in the world.
From my blackberry curve:
Regardless of how everything we invent for ourselves is taken and white-washed. The selfies and self-representation that woc, but especially black women, keep online are a special kind of self-love and self-preservation. This is how we see ourselves, these are parts of black girlhood, parts of black womanhood in 2015. We are here. I see us. I see every one of us.
If you have been following the journey since I first posted the call for submissions on Tumblr, you know that this issue was first meant to come out in January 2016, then around July 2016, then silence from me. Each call, that would go unanswered left me feeling doubtful. I doubted whether the idea was good, whether I was the person to bring it to life. The darkness surrounding my wait for summer to be in the world prompted me to think beyond summer and into issue ii – the survival and self-care issue. More about that later. For now, summer is here, let's savour it.
The cover wasn't always going to look as it does. One day, while I was thinking about the specifics about how I wanted this zine to look and function online: not polished in the way professional blogs have made everything polished, intentionally ugly but still bomb. "Lo-fi," if you will. I got the idea to design covers. And I kept coming back to this photograph of Brenda Fassie.
It was taken in 1987 by Joe Sefale. He was not a woman, which presented me with a pause. The whole point is to highlight and amplify the work, stories, experiences and p.o.v. of black women. I kept returning to the image because it had come to symbolise everything I want this zine and this issue to represent. It's a glimpse into a beautiful summer moment fuelled by ease and assurance.
Nobody has, to me, been so self-possessed as Brenda Fassie was. Her name, her body, her image...it was all hers alone. She herself was a shining example of work and stories and experience of an African black woman, told by an African black woman. She herself amplified her voice at every turn. She might not have held the camera but without her, this photograph wouldn't be this photograph. Her essence spills out. And so, the cover was sealed.
It was taken in 1987 by Joe Sefale. He was not a woman, which presented me with a pause. The whole point is to highlight and amplify the work, stories, experiences and p.o.v. of black women. I kept returning to the image because it had come to symbolise everything I want this zine and this issue to represent. It's a glimpse into a beautiful summer moment fuelled by ease and assurance.
Nobody has, to me, been so self-possessed as Brenda Fassie was. Her name, her body, her image...it was all hers alone. She herself was a shining example of work and stories and experience of an African black woman, told by an African black woman. She herself amplified her voice at every turn. She might not have held the camera but without her, this photograph wouldn't be this photograph. Her essence spills out. And so, the cover was sealed.
In these pages, you will find the beautiful short story my writing partner wrote in (my) winter of 2015. Thank you to her for agreeing for Uju to be the first place to publish it. Thank you to Nicole Magabo for her patience. Thank you to the contributors who said yes when I sent emails and DMs asking them to let me use their work. Especially thank you to Bakang Akoonyatse for agreeing to be the back cover.
I love you, bbz.
I love you, bbz.
☀☀☀☀☀
Nomali Minenhle Cele is the founder, editor and curator of Uju